Elaine Fine

Elaine Fine began musical life as a violinist, but received a Bachelor of Music Degree in flute performance from The Juilliard School of Music, where she was a student of Julius Baker. She also studied recorder in Vienna, baroque flute in Boston, and composition at Eastern Illinois University. In addition to being on the reviewing staff of the American Record Guide since 1993, she is the program annotator for the New Philharmonic of DuPage County, and teaches at Lake Land College, in Mattoon, Illinois. Elaine is active as a performing violinist and violist, and plays in the viola sections of the Prairie Ensemble, the Champaign Urbana Symphony, and also plays the viola d’amore and the recorder. She has over 70 pieces of chamber music published by the Seesaw Music in New York (now owned by Subito Music in New Jersey), and has some woodwind pieces published by Jeanné in Minnesota. She has worked extensively with Amoris International in Switzerland and as an editor and arranger for the International Music Company in New York. Elaine has also written three operas, orchestral music, several songs and song cycles, and a great deal of chamber music, some of which has been recorded on Capstone Records (as part of the 2003 60×60 project) and Crystal Records (on Susan Nigro’s 2008 recording “Original tunes for the Big Bassoon”). Elaine has written numerous articles for The Instrumentalist, Strings Magazine, The Journal of the American String Teachers’ Association, the Maud Powell Signature, and contributed several articles to Classical Music: The Third Ear–The Essential Listening Companion published in 2002 for Backbeat Books. Awards include listings in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in American Women, a special commendation for The Snow Queen in the 2003 Nancy Van de Vate International Composition prize for opera, and yearly ASCAP Awards from 2003 through 2008.